Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
time are accepted by my special order to the office in charge of such
functions in consideration of the offerings having come from a long dis-
tance with sincere good wishes. As a matter of fact, the virtue and pres-
tige of the Celestial Dynasty having spread far and wide, the kings of
the myriad nations come by land and sea with all sorts of precious
things. Consequently there is nothing we lack, as your principal envoy
and others have themselves observed. We have never set much store
on strange or ingenious objects, nor do we need any more of your coun-
try's manufactures.
(Teng and Fairbank 1963, 19)
In 1816 Britain made one last attempt to alter China's business and
diplomatic practices peacefully. Lord Amherst, a former governor of
India, traveled to China with a wish list more or less identical with
Macartney's. Like Macartney, he refused to perform the kowtow and
was ultimately unsuccessful in his mission.
THE OPIUM WAR
The balance of Sino-British trade was very much in China's favor
throughout the eighteenth century. The Chinese commodity the British
most desired was tea, but they also purchased large quantities of silk
and porcelain. The Chinese purchased a few odd woolens and knick-
knacks from the British, but it was mostly silver that flowed out of
Britain and into China. Finally the British hit upon one commodity
for which the Chinese would pay most handsomely: opium, a highly
addictive narcotic that was usually smoked. British opium was pro-
duced in Bengal and then sold to smugglers who ran the drug into
Chinese harbors in small, fast boats under cover of night. Opium
flowed into China in insignificant amounts during the eighteenth cen-
tury, but by the early decades of the nineteenth century the opium
habit began taking hold in southern China, and addiction rates soared
exponentially, first equalizing the balance of trade between the two
countries and then tipping it massively in Britain's favor by the early
1830s. By the middle 1830s southern China's opium problem was
reaching crisis proportions. The British East India Company claimed
all the while not to have anything officially to do with the opium trade,
but it was an open secret that the British were now essentially dope
pushers who were growing enormously wealthy at the expense of an
addicted Chinese populace that would do and pay just about anything
to sustain its drug habit. (Not to be outdone by their erstwhile colonial
masters, some Americans in wealthy New England families increased
their fortunes by selling opium made in Turkey to the Chinese.)
